On Sunday afternoon Atalanta held out for a 0-0 draw with Catania at the Stadio Atleti Azzurri d’Italia. La Dea have now earned four points from their last two games as they continue to build momentum after starting the new year with a poor run of results.
The goalless draw was dull, boring, and most of all painful to endure with both teams clearly afraid of their opponent’s counter attacking threats. Anyone that watched the game could be forgiven for mistaking the fixture as a rugby match. For large periods of time both teams held their shape with 11 men behind the ball as they slowly edged each other forwards and backwards.
To highlight how uneventful the match was, the home fans had to wait until after the 70th minute before German Denis managed the Bergamo side’s only meaningful shot on target, unfortunately for the Orobici faithful other than some long range efforts from Giacomo Bonaventura there was very little else for them to get excited about.
It was undoubtedly clear that the Nerazzurri were really lacking creativity and they badly missed their midfield playmaker Luca Cigarini, who was ruled out through injury.
A lack of attacking flair and creativity has been a familiar problem for Stefano Colantuono’s side this season. But questions need to be asked over the master tactician’s team selection in recent weeks.
Other than Cigarini one of the most creative players in the La Dea squad has to be Maximiliano Moralez, but for some reason the Argentine advanced midfielder has only been selected twice in the last six games and the 25-year-old has not even made it off the bench in their last three fixtures. As far as we know Moralez is not injured nor is he out of favour due to off the field matters. His absence appears to be purely for tactical reasons, but who are we to second guess the tactical genius of Colantuono but surely Moralez’s absence coincides with the Nerazzurri’s lack of creativity.
Another noticeable absentee is the highly rated Italian youngster Giuseppe De Luca, the 21-year old striker has been used sparingly this season, making most of his 14 appearances from the bench. The “Mosquito” has impressed in the majority of his chances for the first team and he has picked up many plaudits on his way. But just like Moralez he has failed to make it off the bench in the last four fixtures despite not being ruled out for any other reason.
Only Colantuono and his staff can see how the players within the La Dea squad train and perform behind closed doors on a daily basis, but from the outside it appears to be that flair players like “Maxi” and De Luca are discarded in favour of older, more experienced players that were brought in during the transfer window, such as 33-year old Franco Brienza, 34-year old Lionel Scaloni and 29-year old Cristiano Del Grosso.
Many Orobici fans feel that Brienza, Scaloni, Del Grosso and others that arrived during January such as Luigi Giorgi and Matteo Contini are far bellow the standards of quality they expect from Atalanta players.
Yet these older more mature heads seem to be higher in Colantuono’s pecking order than the likes of Davide Brivio, who may have been understandably dropped due to his poor disciplinary record of late. And Ivan Radovanovic, who had to make do with a substitute appearance on Sunday, despite the Serbian international’s improvement in form as the season has progressed.
We can only assume that Colantuono’s decision to opt for the personnel he has chosen in recent weeks has been for tactical reasons, and that he feels that holding out for a draw at home to a mid-table side is an acceptable achievement. And that it was necessary to go to Sicily and face a relegation threatened Palermo side with a defencive attitude.
In hind site four points gained is far better than six points dropped from two games, especially for a team that are happy to be free from a relegation dog fight.
Atalanta fans will be expecting Colantuono to select a much more attacking line up for next Sunday’s trip to Turin to face Torino. La Dea will have a score to settle and only a win will do after Il Toro destroyed Atalanta 5-1 in Bergamo in the reverse fixture back in September.
Follow Clark on Twitter: @LaDeaLive and be sure to check out ladealive as well.
Couldn’t agree more, the signings of Brienza, Del Grosso and Contini add to the squad and bring valuable Serie A experience to hopefully avoid getting dragged into a relegation battle. But cant understand Scaloni and Giorgi? Pointless signings no better if not worse than what we’ve already got!
De Luca deserves more playing time. Perfect foil for Denis.
Lots of creative players in the squad if used correctly, Moralez, De Luca, Brienza, Bonaventura. Lacking a vice Denis though, Parra/Budan not good enough.
Atalanta looked so good at the beginning of the season. Players like Cigarini, Moralez, Bonaventura, and Denis were doing well. I would watch them just to see De Luca, who looked really impressive on the U21 team. Now their tactics are scrambled and De Luca is getting little playing time.